Djimon Hounsou to Star, Produce Thulsa Doom Film

According to Variety, actor Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond, Gladiator) is headlining the cast of the second Dynamite Entertainment project to move from comics to film, a feature focusing on Thulsa Doom.

Hounsou will also produce the film, along with Dynamite’s Nick Barrucci and Arthur and Luke Lieberman.

The character has most recently seen life in Dynamite’s Red Sonja comic book series, where he is something of a transplant from Robert E. Howard’s Conan “universe” in which originated in the ‘30s. Doom has been one of Red Sonja’s primary antagonists in the ongoing Dynamite series, and co-starred with Sonja in 2006's Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom miniseries.

The new film will mark the second time the character has seen the screen, the first being in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, where James Earl Jones played the immortal sorcerer. The new film will tell the origins of the character, and take a sympathetic tone, showing how his own personal road to hell was paved with good intentions.

The trade also reports that Thulsa Doom will be featured in his own comic series starting next year.

The Thulsa Doom film is not yet set up at a studio.

The film project is Dynamite's second comic to be adapted, as the publisher's Red Sonja is being adapted by director Douglas Aarniokoski and producer Robert Rodriguez, and will star Rose McGowan.